Who is Just another Perl hacker?
Randal L. Schwartz
Juho> But when do I become Just another Perl hacker? Who are they? I've read
Juho> the FAQ, but it doesn't answer my question. If I replace my email
Juho> signature with JAPH, do I break some kind of law?
Juho> Or is Just another Perl Hacker a person who just hacks Perl?
Well, this ol' JAPH thing started back in 88-ish when I was posting to
a bunch of different newsgroups, and would sign each message somewhat
individualized above the "-- " cut. For a while, it was stuff like:
Randal L. "Some Clever Phrase Here" Schwartz
and I'd change the phrase to fit. I got bored with retyping my name
repeatedly, so I start using:
Just another <subject> hacker,
in each news group, changing <subject> as appropriate. When I started
posting to the Perl newsgroup frequently, I just repeatedly typed:
Just another Perl hacker,
and that got boring, so I stepped it up to Perl code:
print "Just another Perl hacker,"
but again, that lacked the ability to soak up my then-spare-time, so
I started making them a bit more clever, like:
print join " ", reverse split ' ', "hacker, Perl another Just"
and that started a trend of me constantly trying to outdo myself in
each posting. The one that decoded morse code was probably one of my
favorites, as was the "old macdonald" one that is now immortalized in
Jeffrey's "Mastering Regular Expressions" (from O'Reilly). A few
others got into the act... notably one Mr. Larry Wall who wrote code
to pick a random article of mine out of his news spool, run the code,
but print "Not " in front of it!
I have a little less spare time these days, so the JAPH signoffs have
been pretty plain <sigh>. But I occasionally sneak something in that
relates to what I'm answering.
So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
print "Just another Perl hacker,"
--
Name: Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
Keywords: Perl training, UNIX[tm] consulting, video production, skiing, flying
Email: <mer...@stonehenge.com> Snail: (Call) PGP-Key: (finger mer...@teleport.com)
Web: <A HREF="http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/">My Home Page!</A>
Quote: "I'm telling you, if I could have five lines in my .sig, I would!" -- me
Michel Dalle
[snip]
>So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
>but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
I'll agree with that as long as $[ is 0 :-)
Michel.
Randal L. Schwartz
Michel> In article <m1hfpvh...@halfdome.holdit.com>, mer...@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote:
Michel> [snip]
>> So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
>> but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
Michel> I'll agree with that as long as $[ is 0 :-)
$[? What's $[?
:-)
print +("Just another Perl hacker,")[0];
Greg Bacon
mer...@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
: So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
: but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
So do JAPH numbers work like Erdos number? How does one compute one's
JAPH number? :-)
Greg
--
Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea; massive,
difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of
mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
-- Gene Spafford
Daniel Grisinger
> In article <m1hfpvh...@halfdome.holdit.com>,
> mer...@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
> : So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
> : but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
>
> So do JAPH numbers work like Erdos number?
Nope, if they did everybody who had ever received an email
from Randal would qualify for 1.
> How does one compute one's JAPH number? :-)
Perhaps-
my $JAPHID = ($number_of_clpm_posts /
$number_of_questions_received_asking_how_your_sig_works)
*
( 0 ** 0 ); # just for greg :-)
dgris
--
Daniel Grisinger dg...@moiraine.dimensional.com
perl -Mre=eval -e'$_=shift;;@[=split//;;$,=qq;\n;;;print
m;(.{$-}(?{$-++}));,q;;while$-<=@[;;' 'Just Another Perl Hacker'
Jonathan Feinberg
> gba...@itsc.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
>
> > In article <m1hfpvh...@halfdome.holdit.com>,
> > mer...@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
> > : So, in answer to your question, feel free to declare yourself a JAPH,
> > : but most of us around here agree that I'm JAPH # 0. :)
> >
> > So do JAPH numbers work like Erdos number?
>
> Nope, if they did everybody who had ever received an email
> from Randal would qualify for 1.
I don't see the analogy. The Erdös number reflects co-authorship, not
correspondence. I think that by that measure, tchrist and lwall have
Schwartz numbers of 1, whereas gnat has a 2, etc.
--
Jonathan Feinberg j...@pobox.com Sunny Brooklyn, NY
http://pobox.com/~jdf
Daniel Grisinger
> Daniel Grisinger <dg...@moiraine.dimensional.com> writes:
>
> > gba...@itsc.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
> >
> > > So do JAPH numbers work like Erdos number?
> >
> > Nope, if they did everybody who had ever received an email
> > from Randal would qualify for 1.
>
> I don't see the analogy. The Erdös number reflects co-authorship, not
> correspondence. I think that by that measure, tchrist and lwall have
> Schwartz numbers of 1, whereas gnat has a 2, etc.
Hmmmm.... I had a reason for writing that. Let's see, it has
to be around here somewhere.
<time passes>
Oh! There it is, it fell under my desk. Let's see here.
Oh, yup- co-authorship and correspondence both start with
the letter `c'. Good enough for me. :-)
Greg Bacon
Jonathan Feinberg <j...@pobox.com> writes:
: Daniel Grisinger <dg...@moiraine.dimensional.com> writes:
: > gba...@itsc.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
: >
: > Nope, if they did everybody who had ever received an email
: > from Randal would qualify for 1.
:
: I don't see the analogy. The Erdös number reflects co-authorship, not
: correspondence. I think that by that measure, tchrist and lwall have
: Schwartz numbers of 1, whereas gnat has a 2, etc.
Well... it could be both in the sense of the minimum distance (in terms
of a thread tree) from a post that inspired RRaannddaall to create a
new JAPH.
Greg
--
If crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom
fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
-- George Carlin
Greg Bacon
:
: Perhaps-
:
: my $JAPHID = ($number_of_clpm_posts /
: $number_of_questions_received_asking_how_your_sig_works)
: *
: ( 0 ** 0 ); # just for greg :-)
Oh, so we should just go ahead and leave everyone's JAPH number
undefined? :-) :-) :-)
Greg
--
The circle algorithm was invented by mistake when I tried to save one
register in a display hack!
-- Minsky